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Saturday, October 29, 2011

October 28, 2011 was an important day in the world of cold fusion (Low Energy Nuclear Reactions) and exotic energy technology. The currently anonymous customer of Andrea Rossi's 1 MW E-CAT cold fusion power plant sent in their own scientists and engineers to test the device which is comprised of more than 100 E-CAT modules which have been built in to a shipping container. Journalists were allowed to attend the event, including Peter Svensson, technology writer for the Associated Press.

The following two very timely articles by PESN and NYTeknik go over observations of the 10/28/2011 test and have links to the results and sign-off by the customer's representative giving approval for the functionality of the 1 MW power plant:

I really look forwards to the Associated Press article which should come out shortly in the next few days (pending editor approval) because, although PESN and NYTeknik do some excellent work, the AP has broader readership and the ability to speed up public interest and adoption of cold fusion technology. With an estimated cost of less than 1 cent per kWh compared to all conventional power sources, energy this clean, cheap and portable has the ability to transform (and/or save) economies and create a great deal of wealth and higher standard of living for all human beings.

Below is a chart taken from PesWiki (Pure Energy Systems Wikipedia) showing the cost per kWh of many common energy sources:

[...]

Traditional Power Generation

Lowest price listed first

Method

Cents/kW-h

Limitations and Externalities

Gas

Currently supplies around 15% of the global electricity demand.

3.9 - 4.4 Cents/kW-h

Gas-fired plants and generally quicker and less expensive to build than
coal or nuclear, but a relatively high percentage of the cost/KWh is
derived from the cost of the fuel. Due to the current (and projected
future) upwards trend in gas prices, there is uncertainty around the
cost / KWh over the lifetime of plants. Gas burns more cleanly than
coal, but the gas itself (largely methane) is a potent greenhouse gas.
Some energy conversions to calculate your cost of natural gas per kwh.
100 cubic feet (CCF)~ 1 Therm = 100,000 btu ~ 29.3 kwh.

Coal

Currently supplies around 38% of the global electricity demand.

4.8 - 5.5 Cents/kW-h

Increasingly difficult to build new coal plants in the developed world,
due to environmental requirements governing the plants. Growing concern
about coal fired plants in the developing world (China, for instance,
imposes less environmental overhead, and has large supplies of high
sulphur content coal). The supply of coal is plentiful, but the coal
generation method is perceived to make a larger contribution to air
pollution than the rest of the methods combined.

Political difficulties in using nuclear in some nations. Risk of
widespread (and potentially lethal) contamination upon containment
failure. Fuel is plentiful, but problematic. Waste disposal remains a
significant problem, and de-commissioning is costly (averaging
approximately US $320MM per plant in the US).

Conventional, Renewable Power Generation

Currently supplies approximately 1.4% of the global electricity demand. Wind is considered to be about 30% reliable.

4.0 - 6.0 Cents/kW-h

Wind is currently the only cost-effective alternative energy method,
but has a number of problems. Wind farms are highly subject to lightning
strikes, have high mechanical fatigue failure, are limited in size by
hub stress, do not function well, if at all, under conditions of heavy
rain, icing conditions or very cold climates, and are noisy and cannot
be insulated for sound reduction due to their size and subsequent loss
of wind velocity and power.

Currently supplies approximately 0.23% of the global electricity demand. Geothermal is considered 90-95% reliable.

4.5 - 30 Cents/kW-h

New low temperature conversion of heat to electricity
is likely to make geothermal substantially more plausible (more shallow
drilling possible) and less expensive. Generally, the bigger the
plant, the less the cost and cost also depends upon the depth to be
drilled and the temperature at the depth. The higher the temperature,
the lower the cost per kwh. Cost may also be affect by where the
drilling is to take place as concerns distance from the grid and another
factor may be the permeability of the rock.

Currently supplies around 19.9% of the global electricity demand. Hydro is considered to be 60% reliable.

5.1 - 11.3 Cents/kW-h

Hydro is currently the only source of renewable energy making
substantive contributions to global energy demand. Hydro plants,
however, can (obviously) only be built in a limited number of places,
and can significantly damage aquatic ecosystems.

Non-Conventional, Emerging, Renewable Power Generation Technologies

Typical installation requires 1 - 2 pipelines approximately 300km in
length. Endpoints are placed to maximize historical atmospheric pressure
differentials. After construction is complete, however, maintenance is
minimal, no raw materials are required, and no environmental
externalities are produced.

ENECO Chip
is a "solid state energy conversion/generation chip" that will convert
heat directly into electricity. Is more efficient than solar and
substantially cheaper. Can be applied to waste heat as well.

Presently not functioning but two plants are to be built. One (agout
1.3 megawatts) is to be started in Kona next year and the other much
larger one (about 13 megawatts) is also to be built somewhere in the
state later on for the military. I believe that the military spending
guide lines state that there must be a reduction in expenditures for
electricity over the next few years. A Breakdown of the technology by OCEES Internation, INC.

[...]

Obviously if companies can get energy that is at least 4-5 times cheaper than conventional sources (as can be garnered from the above chart compared to < $.01 khW) this would allow them to produce cheaper goods and services as well as increase their bottom line. Also, the E-CAT cold fusion reactor is highly portable and does not require the capital expenditure necessary to build, for example, a large coal or nuclear power plant. With the ability for each home or automobile to have its own cold fusion reactor powering it, a decentralized power grid is possible. Utility costs would get very cheap and individuals could even sell back the excess power generated by their cold fusion reactors at home to the big utility companies to generate a revenue stream for themselves. The possibilities are endless but new technologies such as this take time to adopt (years) and mature. For example, the 1MW power plant tested on October 28th only produces heat/steam, not electricity. Ironing out the details such as converting steam in to electricity, creating steam powered automobile engines or even tweaking the cold fusion reaction to produce electricity directly are some examples of the engineering tasks that can take years to fully develop.

Editor's Note:My hope is that at least the word can be spread fast about this technology so that it creates public interest and demand. Once CEO's realize they can cut costs with really clean, cheap energy they will definitely want to adopt cold fusion to reduce their overhead. For technology companies such as Google or Amazon, server farms require a lot of electricity to keep running. Factories or office buildings can be heated and powered more efficiently with cold fusion heaters or generators as well. Car companies will want to develop new product lines based on cold fusion powered engines, which consumers would eagerly welcome due to cheaper operating costs and not needing to refuel for 6 months. SpaceX and Virgin Galactic will want to adopt the cold fusion technology as a power source for their rockets or space planes. Individuals will want to install reactors inside their homes to reduce utility costs and sell back electricity to power companies at a premium, etc.

Barack Obama and his 2008 presidential challenger John McCain both
received more money from Wall Street donors than their combined lifetime
government salaries. It was a billion-dollar-plus campaign. In fact,
all of Congress makes more from Wall Street and corporate campaign
contributions than their public salaries. It is the nature of the
modern political system. And Timothy Geithner, despite cheating on his
own taxes, was plucked from the New York Federal Reserve to serve as
U.S. Treasury Secretary. So who can the People turn to for solutions?
...Read full article here

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

This year's Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to US and Australian
cosmologists for discovering the accelerating expansion of the
universe.

The Nobel committee in Stockholm announced on Tuesday that the winners
are Saul Pelmutter of the University of California at Berkeley, Adam
Riess of Johns Hopkins University, and Brian Schmidt of the Australian
National University.

They found that the universe is expanding at an ever-accelerating rate
by observing light generated in supernova explosions when huge stars
die.

The discovery proves that a mysterious property called dark energy
increases the rate of cosmic expansion and accounts for about 70 percent
of the mass-energy of the universe. This means that stars, galaxies and
other substances are only a small part of the universe.

The committee says the discovery has shaken cosmology from its
foundation, and that dark energy remains the greatest enigma in physics.

Major US credit rating agency Moody's downgraded Italy's sovereign debt on Tuesday as the debt crisis continues in the Eurozone.

Italy's credit rating was lowered to A2 , down 3 notches from Aa2 .

Moody's said the downgrade is due to a further worsening of the European
debt crisis. It also cited concerns about whether Italy can achieve
fiscal reconstruction, as proposed by the administration of Prime
Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

It was only last month that another US credit rating agency, Standard
and Poor's, cut Italy's sovereign debt rating. Both agencies now give
the same credit rating for Italy, which is the 6th level from the top.

Moody's cutting the rating by 3 notches could cause repercussions in
financial markets already battered by a postponed decision on bailout
loans for Greece.

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